The 11th Jameson Dublin International Film Festival kicked off last night at the Savoy Cinema with a screening of Rufus Norris’s hugely impressive Broken.

Written by Mark O’Rowe, the Dublin-born author of movies such as Intermission and acclaimed plays such as Howie the Rookie, the picture recently picked up best film at the British Independent Film Awards.

Cillian Murphy and Tim Roth, both of whom were at the Savoy, star in a drama about the aftermath of a violent incident at an anonymous suburban estate. Eloise Laurence, daughter of EastEnders stalwart Larry Lamb, is exceptional as the teenager around whom the action spins.

“I think it’s very important that the film is here. I am very proud of this film,” Murphy, the popular Cork actor, told The Irish Times.

“I remember going to the festival when I first moved from Cork. I always felt it was very democratic, but it was also for people who love film. I well remember sitting around drinking cups of black coffee and discussing films I didn’t understand.”

Murphy presented Tim Roth with a Volta, the festival’s lifetime achievement award, before the film began. The statuette is named for the cinema established in central Dublin by James Joyce in 1909.

Roth, raised in south London, received his Volta for work in such films as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Rob Roy.

Guest appearances

This year’s festival, which runs until February 24th, will welcome such guests as actor and director Danny DeVito, Robert Towne, writer of Chinatown, and the distinguished Greek film-maker Costa-Gavras.

Joss Whedon, director and writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the enormously popular Marvel Avengers Assemble, will be in town for the Irish premiere of his take on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The Wachowski siblings’ adaptation of Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell’s bestselling novel, will also have its premiere at the event.

The most controversial film of the festival is, perhaps, Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.

The picture deals with the ever-troubling subject of clerical sexual abuse. Bookended by traumatic events at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin, Gibney’s angry documentary goes on to allege that senior Vatican officials were involved in a complex cover-up. Gibney, who won an Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side, has linked Pope Benedict’s resignation to the scandal. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter last week, he commented: “I don’t have proof that that’s so, but it just seems like it.” Gibney will discuss the film after its screening tonight at the Light House, Smithfield.